t2 & CECO take Britannia to next level of coaching and mentoring

Feb. 11, 2008 - PRLog -- t2 business solutions and the Corporate & Executive Coaching Organisation (CECO) have helped Britannia Building Society become the first major organisation in the UK to build a team of in-house coaches externally qualified by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM).

Employees from Britain's second largest mutual have been awarded the ILM Level 7 Diploma in Leadership Mentoring & Executive Coaching - the highest level of qualification offered by ILM, which is equivalent to a Master degree.

Penny de Valk, Chief Executive of ILM said: “Coaching as a form of development has experienced phenomenal growth in recent years with research indicating that four out of five organisations now use coaching to develop their people (79%)*. As the largest provider of management coaching qualifications in Europe, ILM are committed to making the most dynamic and flexible learning available through quality training providers such as t2 business solutions.”

Dave Marr, Sales and Marketing Director of t2 said: “At t2 we see organisations like Britannia benefiting from their investment in coaching qualifications in a rapidly evolving business environment. The ILM Level 7 Executive Coaching Diploma is the most relevant, quality assured qualification on the market. Coaching has been shown to make a significant impact to the bottom line of organisations and add quantifiable value to the businesses we work with.”
Adrian Powell, People Head of Leadership Development at Britannia, explained: “Part of Britannia's strategy is to be a great place to work, grow and develop and comprehensive training plays a fundamental role in achieving this.
"The team will now use their skills to coach colleagues throughout the Society as research shows there is an 80% improvement in performance when people are trained by a colleague.

"Our aim is to build an internal coaching capability which allows us to offer a high standard of development for people across the Britannia Group. We are planning to have a pool of approximately 80 coaches by the end of 2008." Adrian added.

In light of the success with Britannia, t2 business solutions are launching an introductory two-day coaching open course at the end of February. This will give individuals and companies the opportunity to try coaching without having to commit to the full ILM syllabus. However, as the introductory course is ILM endorsed it can be easily upgraded to the full ILM Level 7 certificate at a later date.

Dave Marr said: “This opportunity allows organisations to try the course with a few candidates, with the later option to create a tailored solution, such as the Britannia coaching.”

Participants are also assessed on their executive coaching skills through the completion of a 3000 word work based assignment and a coaching diary in which they record their own learning from coaching their colleagues.


* Figures taken from CIPD Learning and Development Survey 2006

Website: www.t2business.co.uk